Wednesday, November 11, 2009

"OUCH, Charlie! That really hurt!"

The game of soccer has been around for a longgg time and playing at the professional level is something to be proud of. But some, if not most people, say that soccer is not a contact sport. Well, I beg to differ. I chose a picture of a professional European soccer player getting an absolute facial during the course of a game. The game of soccer is very intense and physical, which is why I chose this particular picture.
I had no luck with stock exchange, but I did however find this picture on Google Images – when I was redirected from treehugger.com. I manipulated this picture by raising the brightness/lightness, upping the level of hue/contrast, nearly eliminating saturation, and adding a well-deserved text box caption. I worked in this way to emphasize the impact on this poor man’s face, in order to take attention away from the background. Although painful to observe, I do not believe the manipulation was harmful. I simply changed the overall color scheme to stress the terrible, but hilarious, collision between face and ball. Professional soccer is a man’s game… it is pretty easy to see why. I wanted to highlight the pain and agony that is stretched across his face, and retort any nay-sayers that contend soccer is a game for the light hearted.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

PowerPoints

From the first round of presentations, my two favorites thus far have been Noelle’s and Melissa’s. Noelle’s presentation on Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex was a perfect 5 out of 5 in my book, because it had it all. Starting with her first slide, I just knew it would be a quality PowerPoint display. I especially liked the lightning-bolt animation (gif) that she used on the first, opening slide that really showed her craft. Following this, she stayed very organized and consistent with her color scheme and kept the information very organized and easy to follow. Also, her use of pictures throughout the presentation was very helpful and added another layer to her description of Rex. Melissa’s presentation on TandemHeart was another perfect 5 out of 5 in my book. I was blown away by all of the amazing information that was presented about the TandemHeart and medical field in general. Right off the bat, she used an amazing interactive pacemaker animation (gif) and heart beat sound to go along with it. Both of these things got me hooked on anything and everything she had to say after that. Moving on, she stayed consistent with the black background and white font, as well as avoiding clutter all together by moderating her information from slide to slide. Overall, the presentations were excellent and I can’t wait to see what tomorrow has in store!